Ben Abbott Interview Transcription
[lightly edited for clarity]
Carlos Plummer & Victor Pereyra
Carlos Plummer & Victor Pereyra
Ben, can you introduce yourself a little bit, provide some of your educational and professional background?
Yes, my name is Ben Abbott, I'm a Professor of Environmental Science and Ecology here at Brigham Young University. I did my undergraduate degree at Utah State University, just up north in Logan— in watershed science: so, understanding how the land, the water, and the human impacts all interact to affect water quality and quantity. I did a PhD at University of Alaska Fairbanks, working on permafrost ecosystems, to understanding how climate change is impacting these northern regions that store so much of the world's organic matter. Then I worked as a postdoctoral researcher for the French National Science Foundation for three years working on issues of algal blooms in western France.
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So, you know, the algal blooms that we see on Utah Lake, they're not an isolated issue. Around the world, about two thirds of all water bodies are showing symptoms of eutrophication— the over nourishing or overfertilization of aquatic ecosystems. Then since 2017, I've been here at BYU working on a variety of projects, but Utah Lake was the very first project that we started back then. I've been involved on the science side, and more recently on the policy side of Utah Lake since that time.
Great, thank you so much. So, one of the first questions I wanted to touch on is, why is the conservation of Utah Lake so important?
The lake is at the heart of our community, you know. I mean, physically, visually, culturally and ecologically. We live in the Great Basin, which is an arid and semi-arid region, a lot of land, it's about 99%, land 1% aquatic ecosystems, that makes each little fragment or island of water really important. All the runoff from the valley goes to Utah Lake, most of that is natural runoff through the rivers. But there also is unnatural runoff from the urban areas, from the agricultural areas, from our wastewater treatment plants that go into the lake.
The lake is providing what we call ecosystem services. These are free services that the environment is giving us. One very concrete example is the lake is removing tons of nutrients from our wastewater effluents freely each year. If the lake wasn't doing that, we would have to pay for the physical removal that would cost tens to hundreds of millions of dollars every year. So, that's just one, like practical service.
But the lake is not just an extension of our wastewater treatment plants. It's a really important cultural center for us, going back tens of thousands of years. The native people that lived here, their whole culture was centered around the lake and continues to be centered around the lake. When the European settlers arrived, similarly, they were drawn to the lake—the first place that they focused on and developed. The lake saved those early settlers from starvation when their crops failed. The fish from the lake supported them. So, it's really important.
If we're thinking about sustainable development for individuals and for all our communities around the lake, we've got to take care of this ecosystem, really be aware of our relationship with it. So again, for me, there are economic benefits, ecological benefits, and also the cultural importance of the lake.
The lake is providing what we call ecosystem services. These are free services that the environment is giving us. One very concrete example is the lake is removing tons of nutrients from our wastewater effluents freely each year. If the lake wasn't doing that, we would have to pay for the physical removal that would cost tens to hundreds of millions of dollars every year. So, that's just one, like practical service.
But the lake is not just an extension of our wastewater treatment plants. It's a really important cultural center for us, going back tens of thousands of years. The native people that lived here, their whole culture was centered around the lake and continues to be centered around the lake. When the European settlers arrived, similarly, they were drawn to the lake—the first place that they focused on and developed. The lake saved those early settlers from starvation when their crops failed. The fish from the lake supported them. So, it's really important.
If we're thinking about sustainable development for individuals and for all our communities around the lake, we've got to take care of this ecosystem, really be aware of our relationship with it. So again, for me, there are economic benefits, ecological benefits, and also the cultural importance of the lake.
So, can you tell me a little bit about the interdisciplinary group that you put together to gather data on the conditions of the lake?
Yes. In 2021, we put together a symposium that was held at UVU and in the run up to that symposium, we invited researchers, managers, community members to participate in various ways. So, one of the coolest things that happened was a group of videographers and photographers, many of them not professional but concerned citizens, they came together and contributed photos and video content about the lake. This was important because one of the most damaging misconceptions is that Utah Lake is a broken ecosystem, that there's something fundamentally wrong with it, that everything's getting worse there. I can show people the scientific data to show that's not the case: the algal blooms are decreasing, the native species are recovering in the lake, individuals are reconnecting with the lake; but a picture's worth 1000 words, right?
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So, having all these photographers and videographers contributing their material really allowed us to show this was not a dead or dying ecosystem. It's, in fact, an ecosystem in recovery. And that was really, really helpful, because scientists had been sharing the data for many years, a Utah lake science panel that's been working to compile all of that data together. But we were missing the community involvement. That process was kind of going on, in the scientific spheres, and this symposium was really exciting because it brought together indigenous voices, community voices, the photography and recreation side, as well as the scientific and political voices that are important to managing the lake ecosystem.
And I think that's really key. As somebody who came from out of state 10 plus years ago, one of the first things that I heard about Utah Lake was, you know, that, it's so polluted, you can't get down to it, you can't use it. So, stay out of there, you know, there's ‘‘three-eyed fishes’’.
But this kind of data gathering, the symposium, and this information that's made available to the public really helps clear up those misconceptions. It's healthy for the rest of the community to understand, this is a really valuable resource that we need to protect and get behind and learn about.
But this kind of data gathering, the symposium, and this information that's made available to the public really helps clear up those misconceptions. It's healthy for the rest of the community to understand, this is a really valuable resource that we need to protect and get behind and learn about.
Well, and that's what's so exciting to me about your project with the class, because the symposium was just one effort, you know, and it's going to reach however many hundreds or thousands of people, but we need tens and hundreds of efforts that are going on, you know, each one's going to reach a unique audience. Then the legislature, we think of them sometimes as leaders, but in many ways, they are followers, meaning that what the people say they want and what they demonstrate that they want, they will start to pay attention to, and that's what we saw as well. We thought that we might get 100 or 200 people at the symposium, instead, we got over 600 people who showed up, and that was still during the kind of pandemic times where it was difficult to assemble. I'm really, really encouraged that that's what's going to make sure that the lake isn't sliced and diced and split up the way that Great Salt Lake. But there’s still trouble today; the legislature just passed a law that allows the lake to be diked in and developments to happen around the lake. We need to have a permanent conservation easement around the lake that makes sure that every community member can access the lake not just now, you know, our Valley is growing so rapidly. It's expected to be the site of most of the population growth in Utah over the next ten and twenty years. And so, it's really crucial that we kind of get these things in place. Now we have a window of opportunity to make that happen. If we don't, it's going to be a much harder battle to protect and conserve Utah Lake in the future.
Can you tell me what would be the best way for a person to educate themselves on issues related to the lake?
We put together some resources at Utahlake.byu.edu and one of the cool outcomes of the symposium was the individual talks that were given, but we also wanted to create like a guidebook to Utah Lake and so we put that together. The state also has a website. I think has lots of good content but it's really hard to like to understand what's going on. And there's a data portal and the DEQ (the Division of Environmental Quality) has some resources about Utah Lake. There also is the Utah Lake Authority website, which is “Utahlake.org”, which is a good site. It has a lot of good information. It's very underutilized; most people don't even know that it's there. One of the things that you might consider focusing on as a class is “how can you leverage social media and then other networks to get some of these resources out there?’’ We tried to do that some with our symposium site. I don't know that we did a very good job, to be honest. But we've got to figure out when somebody Googles “Utah Lake” or when they're thinking, what am I going to do this weekend, you know, we want Utah Lake to come up in their minds: “wow, I live 10 minutes away, or 20 minutes away from this amazing ecosystem!”
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Or, I don't even have to drive there you know, I could take the bus, and it goes to the Vineyard station, or the front runner, the Vineyard station, the Orem Central Station, from where you are, if you like, you can walk there or bike there, it's really quite close! But right now, it's not on people's minds. They're thinking they're going to go to these other places. And so, I'm really interested in long term, how can we rehabilitate people's relationship with the lake so that, as you said, when somebody moves here, or if they've lived here their whole life, they're not thinking “oh, man, what a gross thing”. They're really excited. Right now there are hundreds of bald eagles that are there overwintering at Utah Lake, it's an amazing opportunity to view wildlife. And you don't have to have some kind of like four-wheel drive vehicle and a big boat to go do it. You can literally take the bus and enjoy the path that's there along the beach in Provo and Vineyard or Orem and Vineyard. Let’s keep asking how can we reconnect our community with the lake?
Yes, that's very, very important. I can see that. There have been some ideas and some proposals to fill in the lake and to develop it. What would be some counter arguments for like modernizing, or developing the lake?
Yes, there's one narrative that says “everything's going bad, government has failed us, we need to turn, we need to privatize this, it's the only way. That's a really discouraging proposal to me for several reasons, like, first, it's just not true, you know. It’s based on a completely false narrative. And we have provided the information to that group that's proposing this, they've just totally set it aside, you know, they have decided that doesn't match what they want to do, so let's just ignore all of the really good scientific indicators that the lake is recovering.
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That narrative really misses the mark because if we privatize the lake, if we allow the amazing wetlands and habitat around the lake to be paved, and developed for big box stores, and houses to be built there, that's going to cut off the lake ecosystem from our community. There's growth that's going on in Utah Valley and that's going to continue. Do we want it to be kind of LA style wall to wall development? Or do we want to be thoughtful about this and say, “how can we make sure this area is protected?”. I talked with Ron Madson, who runs the Lindon Marina, and he made this comment: “they close at like 7pm or something. After that time, you can enter the Marina just for free, and none of the amenities are active. But you can go in there, you can just look at the lake’’. He said that “every night they have dozens of people that show up in their cars or on their bikes, they just park there next to the lake, to like, experience the lake, there's so much activity and pressure kind of in in the urban environment”. This is a last area that still is wild and open and undeveloped and there is no amount of development money or taxpayer base that can get that back, right? If we turn that over, if we give away this amazing legacy that we have, there's no way that we can buy it back, right? That's a permanent transaction.
Now, I could also talk for hours about all the reasons that this would be ecologically damaging. We could really push the lake into an unnatural state where it is experiencing really, really bad consequences. Algal blooms wall to wall year-round, much more severe consequences of those algal blooms where we're having pollutant release from the sediments of the lake. We could very easily see lake-wide fish kills. These are things that we've seen in other lake ecosystems that have been highly modified. The big advantage that we have with Utah Lake is that it is intact! It's not totally healthy, you know. There are continued efforts that we need to help the lake recover. But we have a big advantage in that it hasn't been cut up into different basins. The topography of the lake, it's called the bathymetry, the underwater topography is still basically as it was when the European settlers arrived here. So that's a huge asset that we have right now!
Now, I could also talk for hours about all the reasons that this would be ecologically damaging. We could really push the lake into an unnatural state where it is experiencing really, really bad consequences. Algal blooms wall to wall year-round, much more severe consequences of those algal blooms where we're having pollutant release from the sediments of the lake. We could very easily see lake-wide fish kills. These are things that we've seen in other lake ecosystems that have been highly modified. The big advantage that we have with Utah Lake is that it is intact! It's not totally healthy, you know. There are continued efforts that we need to help the lake recover. But we have a big advantage in that it hasn't been cut up into different basins. The topography of the lake, it's called the bathymetry, the underwater topography is still basically as it was when the European settlers arrived here. So that's a huge asset that we have right now!
Wow. Okay. Thank you for that. That's very important.
So, to put it in more human terms: we've got this option of “let's sell the lake”, “we can make a bunch of money off of it, short term”—or there's a view that I think is much healthier and wiser that says, “we are stewards, we're caretakers of this environment that is supporting us. Let's make sure that we are looking to the past, what have we done right? What have we done wrong? And look to the future, what kind of legacy do we want to leave for the generations that will come in the future?’’. Our ancestors, both literal and figurative ancestors, they left us the lake. There have been proposals for the last 100 years to make major changes to Utah Lake, and thankfully, those have been shot down! And we still have the lake today! I'm so grateful for those leaders, and community members who had that vision, and were willing to fight for protecting Utah Lake.
Yeah, I appreciate that.
So, my areas of emphasis are philosophy and religion. I had the opportunity to reach out to Mary Murdock Meyer, who is the Chief Executive of the Timpanogos Nation, and we had a conversation about the relevance of the Timpanogos Nation and their relationship with Utah Lake, including the religious or spiritual side, and what that means to them. And it was a really great conversation. I know, you've worked with Mary Murdock Myers in the past…
So, my areas of emphasis are philosophy and religion. I had the opportunity to reach out to Mary Murdock Meyer, who is the Chief Executive of the Timpanogos Nation, and we had a conversation about the relevance of the Timpanogos Nation and their relationship with Utah Lake, including the religious or spiritual side, and what that means to them. And it was a really great conversation. I know, you've worked with Mary Murdock Myers in the past…
Yes, she was one of the contributors to our Utah Lake document, and it's so cool that you're speaking with her, she has taught me and the whole coalition so much, you know, because many of us come from more of a scientific background. Now, that's an important and valid worldview. But it's not the only one! We've seen that science hasn’t been enough. The fact that this private company could come in and make all of these ridiculous claims about what was going on, and what would work and to have that accepted shows that the scientific view hasn't been adequate on its own.
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Lastly, I just want to talk about on your BYU bio page, you have a quote, where you talk about exploring the Mormon doctrine on ecological stewardship. Can you expand on that?
Totally! I'll first just be really honest with like, open with you, I feel so discouraged about the divisions that are so strong in our national community, and even international community right now, right? When people feel like somebody disagrees with them politically, or religiously, then they're an enemy, somebody who’s ‘‘not worth talking with’’, That makes me so sad. And I think that this is a contributor to the increases in anxiety, and depression, and suicidal ideation that we see, right? We are a species that must work together, that can only find meaning and fulfillment in a group. There are some species, like wolverines, the mascot of your school! Wolverines are fine alone. They love to go off for seven years at a time and only come together when they have to breed. Humans are not that way. And we are really wounded right now, just feeling like we're separated.
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Now at best, religion and civic groups can bridge some of those divides and heal some of those divides, you know. It's the Christian belief that we have to take care of our neighbor. And you know, Christ then asks, “who is your neighbor?” Everyone! The whole human family is our neighbor. That's it. That's an example of a kind of teaching that can bring us back together. But I guess I should take a step back and say, every environmental issue is a manifestation of an unhealthy relationship in our society. There's one view that says: “oh, we don't have the right mining policy, we need to tweak that policy, and then that's going to make us to have a good relationship with you’’. I believe that mistreatment of Utah Lake, or Great Salt Lake, is a symptom of improper relationships among people. If we acknowledged each person as being our neighbor, as being worthy of having a dignified opportunity, a dignified life, that would completely transform the way we manage “natural resources”. I don't really like that term, it seems very extractive to me, like it's a resource that we have to collect. I see the Earth ecosystems as our home. I like that metaphor a lot better. And it clarifies something, you know, there's a very damaging narrative of the environment versus the economy. Are we going to take care of the environment or are we going to allow the economy to grow? That seems so silly to me, because if we take the metaphor of a home, which is the root of the word ecosystem, eco comes from “oikos”, in Greek, which means home. You might have seen the “oikos yogurt”, right? That's homemade style yogurt. An ecosystem is a home, we are a part of that. If you were saying like, “Victor, do you want to, you know, increase your salary? Or do you want to have a good home?” It would be like, “that doesn't even make sense’’, right? Like, no, you never would start selling off, or deconstructing, or burning, or tearing apart your home to make a little bit of money. No, in fact, we do what we do in the economy, so that we can make sure to protect and beautify and make our homes a better place for ourselves, our partners, our children, right? That's the view that we have to take. And I believe I found in Latter Day Saint scripture and doctrine and practice a really clear basis for this.
There are some very strong political currents that discourage us from that. And there's been a divide among Republicans and Democrats about what is okay to talk about. Now, I'm very encouraged, this is changing. My representative John Curtis, he's a congressman at the federal level, and he created a conservative climate caucus last year. It has grown to be the second largest caucus on Capitol Hill, it's really encouraging—Republicans engaging on these climate issues. And regardless of what our political affiliation is, or lack of affiliation, you know, most millennials and Gen Z, don't have a political party. They're not registered Republicans or Democrats, that's a huge change!
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And I actually think it's a good thing in some ways, because the parties can no longer just say, “oh, yeah, if I say, abortion, or climate change, or one of these kind of hot button issues, then people are going to come to my side”, that doesn't work anymore. But it's changing. I think that especially the kind of younger generations are fed up with the nonsense and say, “I don't care, I don't care what you say, I want to see what you do”. Well, your class, I think, is a great manifestation of this. “How can I participate in a helpful way?” Now, some of that's going to be voting and civic engagement. But it has to be more than that.
I think that if we can reconnect with the real traditional teachings, whatever our background is, you know, for me, that is the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. For someone else, that's going to be the indigenous teachings that they have. There's a teaching called the law of the honorable harvest that comes from multiple indigenous cultures in North America. And its teachings that, for me, are so amazing because they are the same things that I have been taught through my religious identity and the ancestors that came before me. So, it's like we all are humans. We all have the same needs. Let's reconnect with these teachings. We've been distracted by this material culture that is encouraging us to like buy more and more things. It tells us that we're going to be happier if we get the newest iPhone. That's not where happiness and meaning come from. And so, I'm really excited about the future because people are starting to reject that model.
Well, thank you so much. I mean, you, you've given so much perspective, so much insight. And I think it's going to be a really valuable contribution to our discussion in our class and our website.
Thank you. Thank you for your energy. That's the only way we're going to solve this altogether!